[asia-apec 775] APEC '93 WATCH / ECO Issue No. 2 Seattle, WA

[David E. Ortman]

Seattle, WA                                 November 16, 1993
                                            Number 2
XXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXX                   APEC '93 WATCH "ECO"

__________________
ECO has been published by non-governmental groups at major
international conferences since the Stockholm Environmental
Conference in 1972.  This issue is produced cooperatively by
groups attending the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC)
Meeting in Seattle, Washington, USA, in November, 1993.
__________________

NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS ASK ENVIRONMENTAL LEADERSHIP OF
APEC CHIEFS

(Today non-governmental organizations issued the following letter
to the APEC leaders)

13 November 1993

NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS' OPEN LETTER TO APEC

Dear Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation Leaders:
   Your meeting in Seattle, Washington provides an opportunity to
demonstrate your continuing dedication to the commitments and
objectives you endorsed at the Earth Summit held in Rio de
Janeiro.  APEC, with members in both industrialized and
developing nations of the Pacific Rim, provides an ideal forum to
address international trade and its effects on the environment.

   International trade can and must be constructed to promote
sustainable development.  Liberalized trade can reward efficiency
and promote investment in environmentally sound goods and
services, or it can cause competition based on ever-lower
standards of environmental protection and worker health and
safety.  To capture the benefits and avoid the pitfalls of trade,
APEC leaders should highlight the need for environmental reform
of international trade, both as part of the Pacific Rim and as
part of the Uruguay Round, which will then lay the groundwork for
future reform of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
(GATT) as a whole.

   Below are some of our main recommendations:

1. The Multilateral Trade Organization (MTO)

   APEC countries should use this forum to declare that they will
not support negotiations leading to the creation of Multilateral
Trade Organizations (MTO) unless a clear, comprehensive
environmental protection and sustainable development mandate has
been established for the body.  Such a mandate must include
mechanisms for meaningful public participation.

2. Environmental Disputes within the General Agreement on Tariffs
and Trade (GATT) 
   
   APEC leaders should push for the necessary changes to the
Uruguay Round text to ensure that it does not jeopardize a
country's right to enact justifiable measures to protect the
environment, including laws protecting animals, public health and
worker safety, provided the measures are implemented in a non-
discriminatory manner.  Similarly, the APEC leaders should
support, in the negotiating text, provisions to ensure that there
is public participation and representation from all interested
parties in the settlement of trade and environment disputes.  

3.  International Environmental Agreements

   Some international conventions dealing with environmental
protection include trade sanctions as an important enforcement
mechanism.  A good example is the Montreal Protocol of 1987,
amended by the London Protocol of 1990.  Other international
conventions, such as protocols to the Global Climate Convention,
and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species
(CITES) may include trade measures as mechanisms  to bring
economic pressure to encourage countries to comply with the terms
of the agreement.  APEC leaders should support efforts to ensure
that the Uruguay Round text explicitly provides that the
implementation of trade sanction provisions of international
environmental conventions, treaties and protocols are not
prohibited by GATT.  GATT should not be the final arbiter in
disputes between signatories and non-signatories to their
international agreements.

4.  Process Standards

   Furthermore, APEC governments should agree to an agenda and
timetable for environmental reform of the GATT, which would be
contained in a Ministerial Declaration  accompanying the closure
of the Uruguay Round negotiations.  The APEC Declaration should
call for negotiations, beginning immediately, to provide for
environmental reform of GATT articles and operations, and
guidelines for the justifiable use of process standards (i.e.
standards relating to how a product is manufactured, rather than
relating to qualities of the product itself) and other national
measures aimed at protecting natural resources and the
environment, including laws protecting animals.  Until these
environmental negotiations are complete,  the APEC countries
should agree among themselves and seek agreement from GATT
Contracting Parties to a moratorium on challenges to existing
environmental laws under the GATT, as has been called for in the
European Parliament.

5.  Toxic Trade

   The APEC countries should announce their intention to halt the
rapidity increasing movement of toxic wastes, products and
industries throughout the region.  Dangerous wastes and products,
such as pesticides, are being dumped in APEC countries as a means
of avoiding more costly waste handling and occupational safety
and health laws in other countries.  The practice of waste
"recycling" often poisons workers and leaves behind dangerous
residues.  In consideration of the 102 countries which have
declared themselves opposed to waste imports, APEC countries
should take immediate steps  to declare themselves off limits to
imports of dangerous wastes, products and industries.

6.  Environmental Impact Assessments

   In addition to reforming global and regional trade agreements
to take into account environmental analysis, each APEC country
should commit to preparing an environmental impact analysis on
any binational trade or trade sector agreement.

7.  Full Price Costing of Commodities

   APEC should call for discussions within the relevant commodity
agreements of methodology and mechanisms for incorporating "full
cost pricing" into the international trade of those commodities. 
This would mean incorporating the cost of sustainable natural
resources management, energy, including the transportation
sector, and environmental protection.

8.  Timber Trade as a Commodity Example

   Among APEC nations are the world's leading suppliers and
consumers of temperate and tropical timbers.  Throughout the
Pacific Rim, including the Pacific Coast of North America where
this meeting is being held, unsustainable forest are widespread
and frequently subsidized.  In order to eliminate one of the most
controversial north/south disagreements over double standards
regarding forests at the international level, APEC countries
should support the inclusion of timber from temperate and boreal
forests in the renewed International Tropical Timber Agreement. 
The goal of all aspects of the timber trade should be to move
toward sustainable production as rapidly as possible, and to
lower the pressure on natural forests.

9.  Debt Relief

   The external debt burden faces by many developing nations in
the Pacific Rim, especially the poorest countries, presents a
major obstacle to sustainable development.  Meeting debt payments
forces massive exports of natural resources such as timber and
minerals and conversion of agricultural land from subsistence to
export crops.  Sharply reducing the debt burdens of these
countries is an absolute condition for achieving both economic
viability and environmental sustainability.

   In addition to debt relief, we urge APEC leaders to call for
the IMF and Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) to reorient
their structural adjustment programs away from their present
rigid macroeconomical focus.  Human resource development and
environmental sustainability  must become an integral part of
balance-of-payment stabilization and adjustment programs.  The
IMF and MDBs must analyze the impact of their programs on social
and environmental sectors, incorporate degradation of
environmental resources into national income accounting, and make
their programs more transparent to give affected communities and
local experts a voice in the design of adjustment programs.  APEC
can play a leadership role in ensuring that these changes happen.

10.  Market Access

   Trade barriers preventing access to developed country markets
cost developing countries billions each year in lost revenue--
much more money, in fact, than they receive annually in
international 'aid'. Developed countries must recognize that
market access is crucial to the success of debt-driven
development programs such as the World Bank and Asian Development
Bank.  The developed APEC countries therefore should seek to
enhance market access for less developed members, while at the
same time ensuring smooth transitions for people in the affected
domestic sectors.

Conclusion

   In conclusion, we urge that the APEC nations work together to
achieve substantive progress in the areas listed above.  In the
regard, we believe it is vital for the APEC governments
individually and collectively to establish a process for moving
forward on sustainable development issues and the protection of
the environment of the Pacific Rim.  We would recommend that APEC
outline environmental tasks for its various Working Groups and
that it consider establishing a Working Group dedicated to the
issues of the Pacific Rim Trade and the environment.

Sincerely:

Alliance for Responsible Trade
American Humane Association
Animal Welfare Institute
Center for International Environmental Law
Chinese Human Rights Alliance
Community Nutrition Institute
Defenders of Wildlife
Environmental Defense Fund
Friends of the Earth-US
Greater Ecosystem Alliance
Greenpeace
Humane Society of the United States
Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
Institute for Policy Studies - World Economy Program
Puget Sound Gillnetters Association
Rainforest Action Network
Society for Animal Protective Legislation
Sierra Club
U.S. Out. . .
WALHI/Friends of the Earth-Indonesia
WorldWise
-----------------


EDITORIAL:
NAFTA IN THE HOME STRETCH:

For the APEC countries and their environments the outcome of
tomorrow's vote in the House of Representatives will be
ambiguous.

If the NAFTA wins. . .

To its credit NAFTA would mark the first appearance of the term
'sustainable development' in the text of a trade agreement. 
Beyond the rhetorical level, the NAFTA has language that, albeit
still problematic, provides greater range for countries to set
protective health and safety standards than would exist if the
current GATT draft is accepted.  This news is good since the U.S.
Congress will almost certainly not pass a GATT unless it matches
NAFTA in these areas.

Despite these gains NAFTA's passage would also mark the success
of a dangerous development philosophy: encouraging developing
countries to get rich quickly and pay for clean-up later.  This
desperate gamble can now be expected to be applied to Latin
America and the rest of the Pacific Rim.

If the NAFTA loses:

If NAFTA is defeated, it will be a tremendous victory for a 
broad coalition of environmental, labor, consumer, church, and
human rights organizations.  Their popular pressure on Congress
will have outweighed the many millions spent by corporations and
governments to pass the treaty.,  At heart, this coalition
understands that trade agreements are no longer simply about
tariffs, they are about the deepest levels of national social
policy -- regulations, subsidies, incentives -- the very fabric
society.  Their reaction against NAFTA stems from the
Agreements's willingness to hang the social fabric on behalf of
corporate interests combined with its sudden deference to
'sovereignty' when it comes to promoting other goals such as
democracy, worker's rights, or environmental responsibility.

NAFTA is badly flawed and yet the current trade and environment
situation in North America is unacceptable.   This leaves NAFTA's
supports and opponents with a common challenge regardless of
tomorrow's vote:  how to channel the inevitable and growing
integration of the world economy in a fashion that promotes
environmentally sound and sustainable development.   APEC needs
to take up this challenge.

-----------------

ECO is a publication of the Non-Governmental Organizations
present at the APEC Meeting to present alternative trade models
that incorporate sustainable development, poverty alleviation
measures and the protection of the environment.

Staff:

Karen Fant
Alex Hittle
Emily Kaplan
David E. Ortman
John Reese

The editorial office can be reached at 206-XXX-XXXX, FAX XXX-XXXX
e-mail: foewase at igc.apc.org